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I'm surprised I can't dig up more about this, but I've become increasingly curious about any 'network' of informants that the Dark Angels (and their successors) might have at their disposal in their hunt for the Fallen/eradication of their shame and guilt.

Surely they use their ships and vast data networks to watch carefully for many things in various systems, but there must be a human element of some kind that persist *outside* of the realms of their vessels. Spies, maybe individuals that are hypnotized into providing data but then forgetting what they saw or are then killed as soon as they provide something useful, etc.

Hell, in Necromunda: Hired Gun there were even wanted posted for Cypher all over the place. I must be missing some mentions in the lore.

So how does this work? What (potentially fascinating) forms does this take, and what is allowed by the DA Inner Circle?

this is something I theorised over a decade ago, short answer is yes, long answer is yes but they have never been shown.

The Dark Angels must have an informant network that rivals the Alpha Legion of pre heresy, agents, sleeper agents etc. spread around the Imperium so that rumours can get back to them and no one else.

Not necessarily.

The Dark Angels know what they’re looking for. Whilst far from a simple task, they just need to sift incoming data packets and news and radio waves and what have you, looking for tell tale signs,

 Formosa wrote:
this is something I theorised over a decade ago, short answer is yes, long answer is yes but they have never been shown.

The Dark Angels must have an informant network that rivals the Alpha Legion of pre heresy, agents, sleeper agents etc. spread around the Imperium so that rumours can get back to them and no one else.

Within the framework of the Imperium, some likely culprits in this network are rogue traders, who have charters, networks and often debts and counter-debts going back to the times of the heresy, and the Ordo Hereticus, because that network is guaranteed to turn up a lot of 'false positives' in form of 'normal' herectics and cults without any Fallen involved, and that information is probably very valuable as a bargaining chip. Also, that network is probably a very useful avenue to employ aspirants that failed due to incompability with some of the SM implants: you can still hypno-condition them and place them among other imperial organisations - they're still in the upper percentiles for mental and physical fortitude after all, and as such prime recruiting material for the Guard, Arbites or Navy. One other element of note is the DA's supposedly huge stack of archaetoch that is rare or non-existent in the wider Imperium: that stuff is another valuable bargaining chip to bribe the Mechanicus if need be, or even set up smuggling networks or cold trader syndicates, either as bait for specific individuals and organisations or as a long-term gambit to establish a secret network that doubles as a information collector amongst the decadent and criminal.

And their chapter fortress moves around enabling the Ravenwing to plant cells allow over the imperium.

Bwahahah, kind of amazing timing that we just got a definitive answer from Warhammer + on this. At ~8 minutes into The Unforgiven Loremasters episode, he says:

"Locating the Fallen is the job of the Inner Circle and, more specifically, the Master of the Watchers, who maintains a network of agents across the galaxy. This complex web contains tens of thousands of human operatives searching for even the slightest rumor of the Fallen. Almost all of these individuals just live their lives, unaware of whom they serve, or the what the information they pass on is for, or what comes of it.

Ignorance is truly their shield, as the Unforgiven would not hesitate to eliminate them should they pose any kind of threat."


I would imagine they're well paid or something though. And maybe they have different means of transmitting all of that information, etc. There's a lot of really fascinating possibilities here if you consider the variety of individuals they probably utilize for this.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not necessarily.

The Dark Angels know what they’re looking for. Whilst far from a simple task, they just need to sift incoming data packets and news and radio waves and what have you, looking for tell tale signs,

What are "incoming data packets"? Do you think the sum total of all Imperial communication is fully broadcast, everywhere, always, without fail, to any interested party with adequate clearances? What technology do you think the Dark Angels have that allows them to "sift" this on a reasonable timeline? We see a bit of what the Custodes electronic intelligence network looked like during the HH in "Blood Games" and their operation doesn't seem as advanced as what you propose the DA would need to have access to for that to work.

That interpretation seems to fall into the "sci-fi writers have no sense of scale" trope. Like, they're definitely getting their sift on to whatever extent they're able, but there's no way they'd have access to either the total amount of information they desire or the means to trawl a galaxy's worth of data.